Is OpenClaw v2026.5.12 stable?
-112/100Fact score: -112/100 · evidence-based, not a YES/NO verdict
“🔴 **Critical: 39 version-gated regressions.** Channel delivery, docs/tooling, runtime, and heartbeat latency are all competing for the rollback trophy.”
Stability Score
-112Base
80
Evidence
-110
Votes
-2
Survived
ignored
Curated
ignored
-112 evidence debt=-112
Affected components
authenticationcodexcron-runtimedashboarddiagnosticsdiscorddocs-commandgatewayheartbeatimsgmatrixollamaprovider-integrationqwenruntimeservice-managementslacktelegramtelegram-mediawebwhatsappworkspace
Install this version
npm install openclaw@2026.5.12openclaw update --tag 2026.5.12Score Evidence
| Issue | Area | Type | Penalty | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| openclaw/openclaw issue 81859 → | gateway | kernel | -5 | macOS npm update leaves stale launchd updater job running; gateway enters kill loop after service refresh |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 81368 → | cron-runtime | kernel | -4 | Pre-execution watchdog regression: isolated cron runs killed at attempt_dispatch after 60s (unfixed from #80888) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 80695 → | telegram | channel-specific | -3 | Telegram cascade regression; polling stall + outbound HTTP agent never rebuilt after 408 reconnect |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 81530 → | telegram | channel-specific | -2 | Telegram Supergroup Forum Topics regression; inbound messages not processed on beta.8 |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 81955 → | dashboard | runtime | -2 | Regression: after 2026.5.12 update, agent loses persona/identity; workspace context injected but not applied (dashboard sessions) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 81940 → | imsg | channel-specific | -2 | imsg RPC hangs on launchd startup; works in interactive sessions but times out under LaunchAgent |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82037 → | gateway | kernel | -4 | Protocol mismatch: v2026.5.7 apps fail to connect to v2026.5.12 gateway; handshake fails with minProtocol/maxProtocol negotiation error |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82277 → | telegram | channel-specific | -2 | Telegram provider consumes updates but never routes inbound/outbound messages; getUpdates becomes empty while gateway running (NEW 2026-05-15) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82274 → | telegram | kernel | -5 | Telegram isolated-ingress spool drain HOL-blocked by in-flight agent turns; +Codex app-server silent mid-turn post-tool-result → 30min timeout (NEW 2026-05-15, CRITICAL) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82264 → | gateway | kernel | -4 | Regression: 2026.5.12 dramatically slower than 2026.5.7 (7.7s status vs 1.4s gateway status); event-loop blockage at channels.qqbot.start-account (NEW 2026-05-15, PERF CLIFF) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82254 → | runtime | runtime | -3 | Agent replies stuck on 'NO' / 'NO!' after upgrade to 2026.5.12 + openclaw doctor; affects all sessions including /new (NEW 2026-05-15) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82252 → | discord | tool | -2 | Discord message action=read crashes with TypeError: (intermediate value).map is not a function in gateway WS layer (NEW 2026-05-15) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82447 → | provider-integration | tool | -3 | OpenAI-compatible providers (Xiaomi MiMo v2.5 et al.) return 400 due to new permissive item schema additions to array tool parameters — intermittent cron failures (NEW 2026-05-16, PROVIDER REGRESSION) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82437 → | codex | kernel | -4 | Codex harness registration failure: /v1/chat/completions returns 500 'Requested agent harness codex is not registered' after gateway upgrade to 2026.5.12; blocks downstream integrations (NEW 2026-05-16, CRITICAL) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82462 → | gateway | kernel | -5 | Streaming response processing starves event loop (25-30s delay, eventLoopUtilization=0.99); blocks /stop command, timeouts all concurrent I/O; affects all streaming providers (deepseek-v4-flash, openai, etc.) (NEW 2026-05-16, CRITICAL PERF) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82706 → | channel-specific | -2 | WhatsApp pairing succeeds but channels.start fails with INVALID_REQUEST; channel never appears in openclaw channels list (NEW 2026-05-16 16:51, P1 REGRESSION) | |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82702 → | docs-command | tool | -2 | openclaw docs command fails with 'Tool SearchOpenClaw not found' via MCP server; docs lookup broken on 2026.5.12 (NEW 2026-05-16 18:36, P1 BUG) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82689 → | gateway | kernel | -5 | Gateway restart subsystem incorrectly detects healthy gateway as 'stale' and triggers cascade restarts every 3-5 minutes; forces restart loop on stable machines (NEW 2026-05-16 18:03, P1 CRITICAL REGRESSION) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82633 → | qwen | runtime | -2 | Qwen3.5 4b tool calls work at v2026.5.7 but vanish in v2026.5.12; model-specific regression affecting smaller LLM deployments (NEW 2026-05-16 15:46, P2 REGRESSION) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82595 → | telegram | channel-specific | -3 | Telegram group inbound silently deadlocks at session lock (confirmed v2026.5.7 and v2026.5.12); DMs work normally. Session-lock self-deadlock detected (NEW 2026-05-16 13:11, REGRESSION) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82481 → | runtime | runtime | -2 | Subagent sessions do not inherit environment variables from gateway systemd process; breaks providers relying on env-var API key injection (NEW 2026-05-16 06:31, affects Alibaba Cloud, others) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83075 → | diagnostics | tool | -2 | openclaw security audit --deep hangs during diagnostics on 2026.5.12; environment-specific regression (NEW 2026-05-17, P2 HANG) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 82886 → | slack | channel-specific | -1 | Slack interactive reply clicks handled but assistant status/typing not shown on button/select interaction (NEW 2026-05-17, P2 UX) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83023 → | telegram-media | tool | -2 | Native image dropped after sanitization regression on 2026.5.12 with Ollama/Gemma4 vision model; regression of #79750 (NEW 2026-05-17, PROVIDER) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83234 → | runtime | runtime | -2 | TUI scope-upgrade retry generates churning requestIds, blocks manual approval; regression of #78727 (NEW 2026-05-17) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83233 → | runtime | runtime | -1 | openclaw models set <alias> resolves to bogus <provider>/<alias>; regression of #68390 (NEW 2026-05-17) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83107 → | runtime | runtime | -2 | Model registry name matching is load-bearing; silent fallback to picker on registry miss with no logs (NEW 2026-05-17, P2 OBSERVABILITY) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83035 → | gateway | kernel | -4 | ERR_INTERNAL_ASSERTION in ESM→CJS translator at gateway startup on Node 22.22.2 and 24.15.0; Node 22.17.1 only version that works (NEW 2026-05-17, P1 CRASH) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83142 → | matrix | channel-specific | -1 | Matrix mention parsing rejects protocol-valid m.mentions.user_ids when visible label uses @[Display Name] syntax (NEW 2026-05-17) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83109 → | codex | kernel | -4 | Codex hardcodes features.code_mode_only=true; stalls every tool-using Codex-runtime turn after 2026.5.12 upgrade (NEW 2026-05-17, P1 CRITICAL) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83159 → | telegram | channel-specific | -3 | Telegram delivery-mirror transcript entries leak into outbound delivery, edit-replacing real assistant replies with mirror/earlier content (NEW 2026-05-17, P1 REGRESSION) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83069 → | telegram | channel-specific | -2 | Telegram voice notes arrive as raw audio in forum-topic chats but transcribed in DMs; inconsistent media understanding path (NEW 2026-05-17) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83088 → | authentication | runtime | -2 | Stale explicit auth.order collapses profile rotation after upgrade; plugin-harness provider immediate fallback (NEW 2026-05-17) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83134 → | web | runtime | -2 | VAPID keys auto-generated with @localhost subject; Apple Web Push rejects JWTs (iOS PWA push silent fail) (NEW 2026-05-17, P1 REGRESSION) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83427 → | runtime | runtime | -4 | Cache-TTL handler causes duplicate assistant-turn emission in session JSONL; model sees repeated responses → self-poisoning history → verbatim repetition (NEW 2026-05-18, CRITICAL) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83449 → | provider-integration | runtime | -3 | MiniMax auth stage takes 30–50s on every request in 2026.5.12 (regression from 4.23, CN endpoint api.minimaxi.com affects Feishu) (NEW 2026-05-18) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83459 → | gateway | kernel | -2 | trash-cli missing from official Docker image; 'openclaw agents delete' leaves residuals/stale entries (NEW 2026-05-18) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 83416 → | runtime | tool | -2 | openclaw_image vision times out after 60s on valid JPEG; optimizer works, vision dynamic tool fails on 2026.5.12 (NEW 2026-05-18) |
| openclaw/openclaw issue 85783 → | heartbeat | kernel | -5 | Embedded-run bootstrap-context variance caused 27-32s heartbeat latency on v2026.5.12 production, prompting rollback after 25 minutes; still reproduced on v2026.5.20 (2026-05-23) |